Workshop:
Institutional and Socio-economic Aspects of Land and Water Use
in Uzbekistan
Date: April 8th and 9th, 2005
Venue: ZEF, Bonn
Organizers: Peter Wehrheim and Anja Schoeller-Schletter
Participants: app. 20-25, Researchers in the project “Economic and Ecological Land and
Water Use Restructuring in Uzbekistan” funded by German Ministry for Education and
Research
Program motivation:
The objectives of the workshop are to provide an overview of the research activities initiated
under the guidance of ZEFa and ZEFb, i.e. the social sciences such as law, sociology,
agricultural and environmental economics etc. The joint discussion of project-related research
activities from both departments should help to identify potential synergies between the
research approaches and findings that may be instrumental in developing a better
understanding of the causes of inefficient and unsustainable land and water use in the region.
In most cases the workshop presentation will be based on the research activities of Ph.D.
students who are in different stages of their dissertation. Therefore, the workshop will also be
a forum to present preliminary results which are open for discussion and which will be subject
to further revisions for which the workshop should provide constructive input. All
presentation should be based on a paper that should not focus on models and analytical
approaches but rather on findings that are based on them. Hence, each paper should contain a
synthesis of individual research findings and some specific, concrete, and realistic policy
conclusions which may be helpful in improving the economic and ecological use of land and
water use in the country.
The thematic arch between the various social science approaches should be the following
hypothesis: The design of legal, political, and market institutions often inherited from the
socialist period have inhibited the transition to land and water use forms that are more
sustainable and more efficient.
Workshop format:
Each session will have a chairperson who assumes the role of a moderator. In each session 2
main papers (each 15-20 minutes) followed by a short comment of both papers by a
discussant (10 minutes) will be presented. Discussants play a vital role in facilitating the
discussion during the workshop. They should relate to the following questions:
- From science to policy: How helpful is the paradigm of institutions from the point of view of
a social scientist, a natural scientist in the context of this project?
- How helpful are the insights given by the paper to better understand the causes for
inefficient and un-sustainable land and water use in Uzbekistan?
TENTATIVE Programme:
Date and time
Friday
17-18:00
Session 1
18:30 – 20:00
Chairperson:
Peter
Wehrheim
Presenter
Topic
Peter Wehrheim
Welcome
Anja SchoellerSchletter and Peter
Wehrheim
Introduction: The relevance of the paradigm of
institutions for understanding Uzbekistan
- the social and regulatory context
- the economic context
Changing patterns in land use
Tommaso Trevisani
Nodir Djanibekov
Discussant: Karin
Holm-Müller
20:30 Saturday
Session 2
9:00 – 11:00
Chairperson:
Anja
SchoellerSchletter
11:30 – 13:00
Chairperson:
Markus Kaiser
Workshop diner at the restaurant “Bönnsch”
Caleb Wall
Farmers´ responsiveness to technological change
Ina Rudenko and
John Lamers
The comparative advantages of the present and
future payment structure for cotton farmers in
Central Asian Uzbekistan
Discussant:
Christopher Martius
Sandjar Djalalov
Marc Müller
Session 3
14:00 – 16:00
Chairperson:
Christopher
Martius
Changes in land use and their effects on different
types of farm
Distortions of agricultural markets due to direct and
indirect policies
Sectoral and Economy-wide effects of different
land and water use reforms
Discussant: Ernst
August Nuppenau
Darya
Zavgorodnynaya
Problems and perspectives of water user
associations
Ihtiyor Bobojonov
and J. Lamers
Market analysis of agricultural products within the
irrigated area of central Asian Khorezm
Discussant: Markus
Kaiser
16:30 -17:30
Anja SchoellerSchletter and Peter
Wehrheim
Synthesis and concluding remarks